Poetry, Art, Medicine & Society

All Hallows

Softly cursing in the graveyard on 4th
Behind the church, an old man picks up detritus,
The Halloween revelers vanished
Like the years, overnight. He harvests more
Than sticks, cupped leaves that creep along the brick walk
Like hands, but wrappers, cans. Let screaming teens
Have their carefree terror. With luck, ignorance
Will last longer than they want, the truth
Not haunt them with its frisson, its sudden touch
Like a breeze with teeth on the skin, the body
Seasonal, a pagan reference,
A secretly held belief. New superstitions fail
To quell the old, the gut certain of the gut,
This the one time and place, the horror
That there are no shadows, no spirits,
That one’s own acts will in the end explain
So much sorrow, each day the mystic passage
Between worlds, breath the marvelous gift
And breadth of what is sacred. He’s clearing
Leaves now off one particular stone.
Children know. They just pretend they don’t
Like peasants in the druid days of old
Samhain, burning all at the field’s edge.
Each day leaves us bereft and yet, unlike
The scattering trees, we hold on. There are
No ghosts. The dead can’t return. They never left.

—David Moolten

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David Moolten

About me: I'm the author of three books of poetry, Plums & Ashes (Northeastern University, 1994), which won the Samuel French Morse Poetry Prize, Especially Then (David Robert Books, 2005), and Primitive Mood, which won the 2009 T.S. Eliot Prize from Truman State University Press, and was published in 2009.

I'm also a physician specializing in transfusion medicine, and I live, write and practice in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

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Audio Files

'Cuda(Originally appeared in The Kenyon Review)

Ode For Orville And Wilbur Wright(Originally appeared in The Southern Review)

Ode For Orville And Wilbur Wright

I don't yearn for their steep excursion
Into fame and fortune, for it had
The usual price, and Orville died bitter
And Wilbur died young. I envy them
Only the slender and empty distance they left
Between them and a seaside's grassy bluffs
In mild December, the frail ingenuity
Of dreams, a lifetime's hopes made of string and cloth
And a little puttering motor that might have run
A lawn mower if the brothers had put their minds
To one first. For dumb exhilaration, nothing --
Not an F-16 thundering from its base
In Turkey nor my redeye circling O'Hare --
Comes close to what they must have felt
For less than a shaking, clattering minute
Clearing all attachment to the world
Of dickering and petty concerns: for some
No other heaven. So I take note of them
As they took notes from the lonely buzzard, obsessed
To the point of love with the ghostly air
And the small fluttering things that wandered
Through it. Eccentric but never flighty,
Bookish but not above nicking their hands
In bicycle shops and basements, they lived
With their sister and tinkered with the future.
Propelled by ambition, the mandate
It invents, they still heeded the laws
Of nature, trimmed needless weight, saw everything
Even themselves as burden, determined
Not to crash and burn. Sheer will launched them,
Good will, because those first forty yards
Skimming shale and reeds were for everyone.
Face down between the struts, staring at the ground
As it blurred past, they failed like anyone
To grasp the implications. But legs flailing
They hung on, buoyed by never and almost
And then just barely. I could do worse
Than their brief rapture, their common sense
Of purpose. Or I could, if only
For a moment, exalt them, go along
With the jury-rigged myth, the quaint
Contrivance that lets them rise above it all.

From the Division of Medical Humanities Newsletter: A moving essay from the great Oliver Sacks serves as a primer for embracing life, and science, even as the end approaches: "And now, at this juncture, when death is no longer an abstract concept, but a presence — an all-too-close, not-to-be-denied presence […]

Jess Libow is currently a summer intern at the Bellevue Literary Review. She is a rising senior English major at Haverford College interested in disability studies. All photos courtesy of camp staff Looking out over the dance floor at Nashville's Wildhorse Saloon as other members of our group line danced […]

about.me

Head & Feet In The Clouds

O.k. so here goes. I'm a poet, a very fledgling filmmaker, and a doctor, pretty much in that order (except when it comes to keeping the lights on).

My most recent book of verse, Primitive Mood, won the T.S. Eliot Prize from Truman State University Press and was published in 2009. I also have two previous books, Plums & Ashes (Northeastern University, 1994), which won the Samuel French Morse Poetry Prize, and Especially Then (David Robert Books, 2005). My poems have appeared in magazines too (such as Poetry, The Georgia Review, The Kenyon Review, The Southwest Review, and Epoch, among others). Last but not least, I've had the good luck to see work in anthologies, including a Pushcart Prize.

The movie list is short, though I hope to make it longer...I've finished one: "Astronaut Goes From Migrant Fields To Outer Space," a short film featuring video, animation, and spoken word, which screened nationally at festivals.

My medical specialty is transfusion medicine, which means I'm an expert on the collection, storage and use of blood (and associated therapies and technologies) for patient care.

David, my family still worships Féile Moingfhinne on Samhain. We just cannot seem to get the Scot/Irish our of our system. I have always found life in cemeteries. Your last words: There are no ghosts. The dead can’t return. They never left. There is that and a melancholy comfort in your poem.
Regards,
DH

Thanks for your as always enthusiastic and colorful commentary. Halloween has always been one of my favorite holidays, though there is a wistful part to it, after all the candy and hijinks, with the first nip of cold and the realization of another year gone.

This poem is all the more powerful for being published here days before Halloween takes place — its post-Halloween sobriety renders trivial even the anticipation of this weekend’s revelry. The man cleaning up reminds me of the somebodies who must clean up after war in Wislawa Szymborska’s poem. I imagine this man as a family relative of the person buried under the “particular stone” (or perhaps he’s a church staff member). Brilliant to open this poem with a curse. I see you use the word “detritus” as in your blog title. This poem has so much to admire — so many infolding images and concepts. Your profound poems always reward multiple readings, David.
–Therese L. Broderick

Thanks for your kind and as always thorough take on my poem. Halloween has always struck me as one of those holidays where the sediment of history is very apparent, the ontogeny of the holiday through various periods, superstitions and practices, despite most people being fairly oblivious (my children know the M&Ms are what really matter).

I love the way your poem travels back and forth between (A) day to day perceptions and activities, then moves off to (B) a more spiritual “truth” that exists within the (A) place. It is reached by a mystic passage. “Children know. They just pretend they don’t.” At the beginning it is as if the caretaker is trying to sweep it all away. In the end, nothing is burned, swept away or departed. “They never left”. It is brilliantly woven into the truth of ancient knowledge. Thank you for sharing.

‘With luck ignorance will last longer than they want’..this jumped out at me
I’d just been saying how important it is to hang on to carefree innocence for as long as possible.Ultimately ‘each day will leave us bereft ‘and then the decision ‘to hold on’ or not….but that is for the end time…and I’m probably way off track here …raving on like a looney!Oops

Thanks for your kind comments. I’ve always found Halloween to be a quirky holiday with all the merriment, kind of like the old cliche, ‘whistling past a graveyard.’ Adolescents seem to be so oblivious to reality, and thus happy, even with the strangest things.

My God, I love this. Such a descriptive picture you paint of the entire scene, the old man’s actions, interweaving his thoughts. And I love the last line: “No ghosts. The dead can’t return. They never left.”

A meditation that doesn’t lack for good, creepy images: cupped leaves…like hands, like a breeze with teeth on the skin. We do make things to pretend to be afraid of so as not to look to closely at our fears.